The Art of Breathing

by Janie DeVos

  “Window nothin’,” Sparky hollered. “You bring that woman out here! We’re gonna put her in the back of my truck and parade y’all through town!” Obviously the crowd agreed and began shouting poor Glory’s name.

  “She’s gonna kill me,” Prescott said, turning away from the window.

  “Glory’s either frightened or madder’n a hound who can’t remember where he buried his bone!” Mama said, followed by guesses from the crowd as to which emotion they’d evoked in her.

  Everyone edged closer beneath the window. Packed tightly together, we quietly listened to the heated lowered voices coming from the dimly lit room above. They were obviously arguing, though no one could see them. I couldn’t make out what was being said as I was standing toward the back of the crowd, holding Donnie in my arms so he’d have a better view of the goings-on. Those who were closest to the house suddenly snickered, then relayed what they’d heard. Aunt Harriet whispered over her shoulder that Glory had just told Prescott he would be singing five octaves higher if he dared try to take her outside. Then the harsh whispering from the bedroom went completely quiet. The crowd strained to hear, pressing in even closer to the house. Suddenly, a huge bucket of ice-cold water was dumped on them by a laughing Prescott and Glory. Shrieks rang out at the shock of the cold drenching, and everyone ran into each other like bumper cars as they frantically scrambled out of the way in case a second assault was coming.

  Fortunately, Donnie and I were spared most of the downpour, but we quickly stepped back from the crowd, more to avoid being trampled than from the threat of another soaking. Glory was no longer assaulting the crowd with water but with a tongue-lashing, telling everyone that they’d about made Prescott a widower before they’d even had one night together as husband and wife. “Y’all scared the pee-wally outta me,” she scolded. “And I’m telling you now, I’ll find out where all y’all live, and when you least expect it, you can be expectin’ me!” Though her words were heated, I could see that it was taking every bit of control for her to not start laughing.

  “C’mon, Glory,” one of her cousins pleaded. “Let’s go for one spin down Main Street, and we’ll bring you and Prescott right back. Sparky’s gone through the trouble of decorating his truck for y’all. It’d be a shame to let it all be for nothin’.”

  “Lord’a mercy!” Glory muttered. Then louder, “At least let me grab my coat and put some shoes on!” A great cheer went up and an unspoken but unanimous decision was instantly made that just as much as Prescott belonged to them, Glory now did, too.

  CHAPTER 7

  One Word

  Everyone began to disperse, either pulling their vehicles into line for the impromptu parade down Main Street, or to head on home. Donnie and I were walking back to Daddy’s truck after deciding to forego the rest of the shivaree. I didn’t know who was more tired; my five-year-old, who walked hand in hand with me, zombielike, or me. Suddenly, I started coughing so hard I had to step out of the way of the others who were also on their way back to the church’s parking lot. A couple of friends who passed me asked if I was all right, and I nodded to them that I was. Harriet had been close behind and stepped over to us, then she told Donnie to run on up ahead to his grandma and to tell her that we’d be there in a minute.

  “That’s a wet cough, Kate. How long have you had it?” We were between the streetlight that lit the church’s parking lot and the light emanating from Prescott’s place. Caught in the shadows, we stayed out of the way as everyone else passed us. “About three weeks,” I whispered, then started coughing again, only this time I was finally able to cough up a good amount of phlegm. My cough had been fairly dry until that morning, and even then, the phlegm I’d been able to bring up had been a very small amount, thick and yellow. Reaching into my purse, I took out a light blue handkerchief and spat into it, but before I could put it back into my purse, my aunt took it from my hand.

  “Let me see that,” she said, as she walked toward the light. I followed her, objecting to the necessity of her examining it. She stopped as soon as she was able to see and I saw her body tense slightly. As I walked up behind her, she turned, and the look on her face needed no words to frame it; something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong. I grabbed the wrist of her hand that held the handkerchief out to me. This time the yellowish phlegm was mixed with a thick glob of dark clotted blood. “Oh, my God.”

  “Okay, now, let’s not get in a panic,” my aunt said, trying to calm me. “How long have you been doing this, Kate?”

  I answered with a question of my own. “What does this mean?” I watched her eyes. If she looked away from me, I’d know she wasn’t conveying what she was actually thinking. However, her response was noncommittal.

  She folded the bloodied handkerchief, then tucked it into her pocket. “Kate, we need to get you tested—”

  “You didn’t answer me. What are you thinking is wrong with me?” My voice sounded hollow, strange, as if I was hearing it from outside myself.

  “I can’t diagnose something that—”

  I interrupted her again, asking my question a different way. “What is the first thing they’ll test me for?”

  “Tuberculosis.” She said it without hesitating. “They’ll take a chest X-ray and a sputum sample.” Suddenly, I felt like a ball trying to stay still on a slanted floor. There was a ringing in my ears from the rush of adrenaline, and I took a step back from her as if the word “tuberculosis” could infect me by just hearing it. Seeing my reaction, she grasped my upper arms. “Kate, let’s not get more upset by just guessing. We don’t know what’s going on yet.”

  “But you see it every day. You know what you’re seeing.”

  “Yes, but . . . Please, let’s just get you tested before we get ahead of ourselves here.” We were only about a half mile from home, and she suggested that we walk if I felt I was able to. I told her I was, and she hurried over to one of the last stragglers heading to the parking lot and asked him to let my folks know that we were going to walk home.

  She slipped her arm around my waist as we walked together in silence. I wondered if she was trying to give me time to collect myself, or if she was just looking for the right words to say. I did know one thing, though: She was keeping me from falling to my shaking knees. Aunt Harriet was shorter than me, but solid and strong. There was no mistaking that she was my father’s sister; they’d always looked a lot alike, with the same golden eyes and thick dark hair, but Daddy was much taller. He couldn’t have done a better job of supporting me at that moment, though.

  “Now, Kate, you listen to me. If, and I do mean if, you do have tuberculosis, it’s not a death sentence like it used to be. We have antibiotics and different treatments now that are combating this thing like never before.”

  “I know. But I also know that plenty of people are still dying from it.”

  “Some are, yes,” my aunt had to agree. “But every year, those numbers are dropping. And today, they aren’t institutionalizing people for the sole purpose of keeping them from contaminating society. Today, they’re able—”

  “Institution?” The word finally worked through to my brain. My thinking felt thick and disconnected.

  “Kate, I work with some of the best pulmonologists at Pelham, and I know the wonderful work they’re doing today.”

  I was only half listening. “Couldn’t I just have an infection that’s causing this bloody cough?”

  “You could. You most certainly could. The blood you expectorated—you coughed up—could be caused by several things, but TB would be one of—”

  “Oh, my God! What about Donnie?” I knew that if I was sick, there was a good likelihood my son was, too. The fear that I felt for myself was nothing compared to the absolute terror that Donnie could be sick as well. Before my aunt could say anything, my soft crying turned into deep sobbing.

  “Kate, you’ve got to pull yourself together! First, we don’t know for certain that you have tuberculosis, and even if you do, that doesn’t mean Donnie d
oes, too. Most people who are exposed to it never develop the disease. Look at me! I’m a perfect example. I work around people with TB almost every day, and I’m fine. Donnie hasn’t shown any signs of being ill, has he? No signs of fatigue, and he’s not coughing, right?” I answered that he seemed fine. “Okay.” She nodded. “Good. That’s good. Now listen, we’re going to take this one step at a time, but right now, we need to get home. It’s gotten chilly. C’mon, let’s go and we’ll talk while we’re walking.

  “Tomorrow, I think we ought to see if the mobile clinic is anywhere near town,” she continued. “If the clinic’s in town, we’ll get you right over there; otherwise, we’ll drive down to the hospital in Marion, and have you checked there. Does that sound all right to you?”

  I nodded as I started coughing again, and my aunt quickly handed me my handkerchief. I coughed up another sickening glob, but this time I did not have to look to see if the results were bloody or not. The heavy metallic taste told me all I needed to know. As I tucked my handkerchief in my purse, my aunt gently squeezed my shoulder and quietly said, “It’ll be okay, Kate. We’re going to get you some help.” Then neither of us said anything more as we continued to walk.

  Finally, we turned onto the long dirt road that led into the orchard and to my parents’ home, as well as my grandmother’s place. “Look at that!” Harriet softy said, pointing to the huge full moon that hung just above the tops of the apple trees. The face on the moon seemed to be taunting me with its smile. “The rain we had earlier sure left the air good and clear,” she said, taking in a deep breath. And as she did, I prayed to God, and to all of His mightiest angels, that before too long, my lungs would be as good and clear as the night air, and that I could smile right back at the moon.

  CHAPTER 8

  Past Meets Present

  It’s funny how it seems to take so long getting to a place you want to be, while the trip to someplace you dread going seems so much shorter, even when the distance is the same. My mind was weighing the reason for that as my head rocked gently against the window in rhythm with the moving train. Unlike the trip going to Howling Cut, the sadness and uncertainty about my future made the return trip pass much more quickly than I wanted it to. It had been a sad farewell as my parents and son waved and blew kisses at me from the platform until the train moved away from the depot, blotting out the view of my family with its gray opaque steam. I was glad I’d been able to hold back the tears, but I’d shed so many of them already, it was as though my body was completely dehydrated. I felt as though I hadn’t stopped crying since the night of the shivaree.

  Aunt Harriet and I had returned home that night to find my parents drinking coffee at the kitchen table, enjoying a recap of the day’s wonderful events, and thankfully, Donnie was already in bed upstairs. He’d only been down for several minutes, so we kept our voices low, careful not to wake him. Before entering my house, I had told Aunt Harriet that I wanted to be the one to tell my parents about the bloody phlegm, and the necessity of getting a chest X-ray the next day. Harriet was merely there for moral support and to answer, as best she could, any questions that they or I might have. Needless to say, my parents were stunned and terribly frightened. Not heeding any caution given about the risk of close contact, they kissed me and held me tight, reassuring me, as well as themselves, that I would be just fine.

  Harriet had gone home about 11:00 p.m. Daddy walked her home, following the dirt path that connected the two homes, while Mama and I watched from the porch as they made their way along the edge of the orchard. When Daddy returned, we sat down at the kitchen table, and as much as we hated doing it, we discussed the what-ifs, and the must-do’s should my diagnosis not go well.

  Daddy had bought a newspaper at Taft’s Mercantile soon after sunup to check the daily listing of where the mobile clinic would be that day. It was scheduled to be in Flat Top, which was closer than the hospital in Marion, so Daddy drove me over. Aunt Harriet accompanied us because of her medical expertise, while Mama stayed at home with Donnie. It wasn’t too hard trying to dissuade him from coming with us as we told him that I thought I might be getting a cold and needed to see the doctor before I got to feeling too poorly. I knew Donnie disliked visiting the doctor or the dentist more than anything else in his young life, so it took very little convincing to keep him home. It pained Mama not to be with me, but we promised to call her from Flat Top as soon as we knew something.

  The mobile clinic was a reincarnated school bus that was painted white. The interior looked like a mini version of a doctor’s office, complete with check-in desk, one examining room, a compartment for X-rays, and a tiny office. There was only one patient in front of me, and while he was being seen by the doctor, I filled out paperwork. Shortly after I’d completed the forms, I was directed to an examining room by an older-looking nurse, who then took my temperature and blood pressure. Aunt Harriet had accompanied me, and the nurse told us both to have a seat while she let the doctor know I was ready to see him. Several minutes later, a rather young-looking physician, who introduced himself as Stan Black, joined us. We discussed my list of symptoms and I answered his questions, as his nurse took notes. Aunt Harriet went into deeper detail, using medical terminology when she felt it was necessary, and every so often, Dr. Black referred back to my medical history as though he was cross-referencing the past and the present.

  “Mrs. Cavanaugh, it says here that you had scarlet fever at age ten. Can you tell me how long you were sick with it, and were any tests run after you’d recovered—to check your lungs or your heart, for instance—to see if there might have been any permanent damage as a result of the fever?”

  My aunt looked over at me. “I’d completely forgotten about that. You were sick with it for close to three weeks.” She addressed the doctor. “At one point we thought we’d lose her, the fever had gotten so high. She was admitted to Mercy General, in Marion, during the last week and the fever finally broke.”

  Confused by the questions of an illness that I’d lived through so many years before, I interjected, “What does that have to do with me today?”

  Dr. Black’s smile had a tad of condescension attached to it. “Mrs. Cavanaugh, past illnesses can leave the door open for other diseases, you might say. You’re more vulnerable, more susceptible. We’ve seen a lot of people who have histories of serious diseases, especially respiratory or pulmonary, coming back years later with new illnesses that were likely contracted due to compromised immune systems. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. At this point, I just need as much information about you—both present and past—as I can get in order to diagnose you correctly, and treat you properly.”

  Again, he asked me if my heart or lungs had been tested after the scarlet fever, and I told him that I couldn’t remember any tests being done, and neither could my aunt. But just to be sure, she quickly checked with my father out in the waiting room, and returned to report that no tests had been run to his recollection. Dr. Black had me open my blouse then, and listened to my heart and lungs with his stethoscope. He listened from both the front and back. Finally, he sat back from me as he hung his stethoscope around his neck. “Let’s get a couple of chest X-rays, as well as a sputum smear sample. Whatever bacterial growth occurs within it will help to confirm what we’re dealing with. And Ellen”—he turned on his swivel stool to face his nurse—“we’ll need a blood sample for a Wassermann test.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Doctor! Is a Wassermann test really necessary?” My aunt sounded more than a little irritated.

  “What’s a Wassermann test?” I asked, looking from her to the doctor.

  “It’s a test for syphilis,” my aunt disgustedly answered, then, turning back to the doctor, she angrily told him that she could vouch for my high morals and the lack of any promiscuity.

  “Dr. Black,” I calmly stated, “my parents didn’t raise trash. And if there’s a question about that, then perhaps I need to see someone else.”

  “Mrs. Cavanaugh, I’m not insi
nuating anything of the kind.” Dr. Black sighed, as though he was tired of having to explain that he wasn’t questioning his patients’ moral behavior. “I truly meant no disrespect. The law requires that I administer a Wassermann test. I have no say in the matter. The truth is that many people who’ve tested positive for tuberculosis have also tested positive for syphilis. Please, let me do my job, and let’s get these tests completed so that we can move forward with your treatment, and, hopefully, your recovery.”

  “Then let’s get to it,” I said.

  CHAPTER 9

  Altered Lives

  Next stop, Swannanoa! Arriving in Swannanoa!” The train conductor’s voice startled me out of the half sleep that the rhythm of the train had lulled me into. Turning to look out the window that I’d been resting my head against, I squinted from the assault of the midday sun. The long, low hills were dotted with a mixture of newer-looking farms and dilapidated old ones, but no matter the age, they all looked miniscule in comparison to the enormous fields that surrounded them.

  “Are we at Swannanoa already?” Aunt Harriet asked as she sat down in the seat diagonally across from me after a visit to the ladies’ room. “Then East Asheville is the next stop, and that’s ours.” she said. “I hope the car from Pelham will already be there. It’ll take a while to get you through the admission process, and we don’t need to be delayed any longer than we have to be. They don’t like the patients to miss or interrupt supper, if it can be helped.” She looked around her seat area to make sure she had everything packed away, and found a piece of waxed paper that her roasted chicken sandwich had been wrapped in. Crumpling it up and sticking it inside the small wicker basket we’d carried our noonday dinner in, she glanced over at my wrapped-up, half-eaten sandwich. “Can’t you make yourself eat a little more, honey? It’s going to be a while before you’ll be able to have something else and you have to keep your strength up.”